


No End In Sight

by pyrites



Series: Pharos By Right [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (READ THE FIRST INSTALLMENT), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Angst and Humor, Archivist Gerard Keay, BPD Tim, EDS Gerry, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Gertrude is in the Skin Book, HoH Tim, M/M, Mystery, POTS Gerry, Tags to be added as I update! So Many More Actually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 09:15:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27848382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrites/pseuds/pyrites
Summary: “You’ve already made the choice, so you’ll need to commit to it.”That's the thing about war. There will always be casualties.It all comes down to whether they'll last.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Tim Stoker
Series: Pharos By Right [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933000
Comments: 40
Kudos: 62
Collections: GerryTitan verse





	No End In Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, that doesn’t leave us with many options. Zero, in fact. _Zero_ is how many options that leaves us with.”
> 
> Gerry winces as he shrugs his sore shoulder. “The only other person I could think to ask is Gertrude.”
> 
> Tim sighs, tilting against the window. “Crying shame she’s dead, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **soundtrack** : [wanting - oh pep!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VmbpbqKST4)
> 
>  **to understand this, you need to read the first installment,[nothing ventured](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26637169/chapters/64956085)!** please do that if you haven't already!
> 
> **CWs in the end notes!**

───── ⋅◆⋅ ─────

  
  


Gerry hasn’t said much since they boarded the National Express. Tim knows it probably has far more to do with the dislocated shoulder than with _his_ attitude, but what does he know? It could be any combination of things.

Might also be just not wanting to deal with said dislocation on a crowded bus. It’s still not exactly Tim’s _fault_ that his car is taking so long at the shop, but the machinations of Gerry’s mind are an enigma when he wants them to be. Tim, for one, knows they _should_ be blaming Elias. At least the travel cost is covered if they’re doing Institute work. That’s something to take advantage of.

Except that going to Coventry didn’t feel like taking advantage of much of anything. Right now, it feels a lot more like being taken advantage _of._ Hence the mood Tim has found himself in.

Most of the overthinking grinds to a halt when Gerry tips over to lean against him. Well, fuck. Now, Tim’s only regret is leaving his arms crossed for so long. Gerry’s have been, too, better hand clutching his elbow close to his side.

“Still wish you’d let me run somewhere for a sling,” Tim murmurs against the crown of his head. “It looked pretty bad, Ger.”

Gerry grumbles. “It pops back in just as easy as it pops out. Happens all the time.”

“…Right,” Tim draws out. “See, yeah, that’s the thing. I knew you were _flexible,_ but…” 

Curled knuckles prod his ribs. “I’m fine. I’m just… _annoyed_ by how it happened.”

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. If Gerry had wrenched his shoulder out of the socket fighting some kind of big, scary monster, maybe it’d be one thing. Tim can understand being pissed off that it happened because he’d yanked on a door handle too hard while too distracted talking to see that it was a _push_ door. There had been absolutely no time for Tim to laugh at him before the _shout_ he let off, busy with a heart attack before needing to help pop the damn thing back in, all while random passersby gawked at them like they were committing some sort of public indecency. Gerry curses like a sailor when he’s hurt in just ‘mundane’ enough a way that he lets himself get angry about it.

“I’m sorry,” Tim sighs. Carefully, he unwinds his arms to fit one around Gerry’s back, mindful of where the bruise was already blossoming when they lifted his shirt to check. “Think you can sleep it off a bit?”

Gerry nods against his shoulder, and almost comically, yawns. “If sleeping on public transport were an Olympic sport…”

“If sleeping _anywhere_ were an Olympic sport,” Tim corrects, “you’d be a gold medalist, yes. Unparalleled nap skills.”

“Damn right.” Gerry shifts, pulling a little face. “You should take your arm back, though.”

For the best. Tim gives Gerry’s upper arm an affectionate squeeze and kisses the top of his head before they separate. Gerry nestles back down against his shoulder and goes quiet.

Tim hasn’t texted Sasha yet. No time like the present.

**sasha**  
  
**Today** 3:05 PM  
**Tim:** So that was a bust  
**Sasha:** What happened?  
**Tim:** I’d say “what DIDN’T happen” except literally NOTHING happened is the whole problem  
**Tim:** We didn’t find anything  
**Sasha:** Sure you were looking hard enough?  
**Tim:** Uh damn sure  
**Tim:** Just about turned the whole place upside down  
**Tim:** TWICE  
**Sasha:** I feel like you’ve come to some kind of greater conclusion and you’re waiting for me to guess what it is.  


Jerk.

**Tim:** I’ll get back to you on that when I get Gerry’s input  
**Tim:** We’re on the bus he’s asleep  
**Tim:** How are things at home base  
**Sasha:** Quiet, mostly. Jon actually made a successful cup of tea for once.  
**Tim:** Oh good for him  
**Sasha:** And immediately spilled it, of course. Starting to think he’s cursed.  
**Tim:** Wouldn’t argue  
**Tim:** That all?  
**Sasha:** More or less! Elias popped in once, but it wasn’t anything too serious. I was just very disappointed that he didn’t slip in the tea mess.  


Tim’s jaw shifts, teeth scraping teeth. Yeah. There’s no way that this wasn’t orchestrated. Even these texts probably have something to do with it, in hindsight.

**Tim:** ETA 2 hrs  


He sets his phone down in his lap as Gerry shifts against his shoulder, shaking his head at the rush of scenery outside the window.

They’d been sent to Coventry to shake out an old bookstore, looking for some nonsense thing that Tim doesn’t even remember the title of anymore. He’s pretty sure it doesn’t exist at all, and that Elias has been sending them on wild goose chases for the past month and a half. They have their own endeavours, yes, but any time he _tells them_ to do something — it’s just _off._ It doesn’t feel like any of them have been traps, either. Just wasting time.

He just doesn’t know _why._ His suspicions don’t mean anything until they’re confirmed. It _sucks._

Tim texts those thoughts to Gerry for him to wake up to, and tries to watch the sky. No dark clouds or anything symbolic like that. No bright ones, though, either. Hard to find solace in a clear day when there’s nothing up there to latch onto and measure distance with. Aren’t even any cows.

Gerry doesn’t sleep for long. Tim nudges him to check his phone, pulling his own out again in preparation to text back and forth. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing they should talk about on public transport.

“My hands hurt,” Gerry mumbles in complaint. Tim has to strain to hear him. 

“Well, whispering’s not going to cut it. Either we text, or we save it.”

“It doesn’t have to be _whispered,”_ Gerry says, raising his voice a notch. “I don’t see what the big deal is. Nobody ever bothers me when I talk about the Powers out loud.”

Tim lifts himself up in his seat a bit to look between the head rests. “Of course not. Somebody hears some bonkers shit in public and looks around like _‘who said that,’_ sees you, and goes ‘ _oh, that makes sense.’_ You look cryptic. _I_ don’t. And I’d like to keep it that way.”

Gerry rubs his face, muffling a groan. “Why are we arguing about this?”

_“I don’t know,”_ Tim mutters, indignant. And it sounds stupid. “This is just really eating at me. I feel like we have to be worried about something.”

“We probably do. He clearly wants us out of the Archives as much as possible. That means he’s got business there he doesn’t want us to interfere in, or he wants us to think he does.”

“Great.” Tim rolls his eyes. Ugh. No. He doesn’t want to be taking this out on Gerry. He lets out another sigh, this time to clear his head some. “Do you think Dekker might know anything?”

Gerry shakes his head. “He’s trying to be off the grid for a while. We correspond to talk inventory and everything, but I’m not about to call him and drag him into something new.”

“Fair, I suppose.” Tim knows, _technically,_ that it is. That doesn’t mean he isn’t bitter about knowing that there’s information out there that could help them, and they can’t access it. “Well, that doesn’t leave us with many options. Zero, in fact. _Zero_ is how many options that leaves us with.”

Gerry winces as he shrugs his sore shoulder. “The only other person I could think to ask is Gertrude.”

Tim sighs, tilting against the window. “Crying shame she’s dead, then.”

Gerry doesn’t respond. Tim looks over to see him with his head facing the aisle, his leg bouncing between them. If he were in any better a mood himself, he might reach over to settle his hand over Gerry’s thigh, but something tells him this isn’t the time. He leans forward instead, lowering his voice.

“Okay, you’re not giving me a grief vibe. You’re giving me a _secret_ vibe. What’s going on?”

“Not here,” Gerry says. “We’ll talk about it when we get back.”

Tim blinks. “Sorry, _what?”_

“Not here.”

So it’s final when _he_ says it. Tim crosses his arms again to huff as Gerry twists to stretch his legs into the aisle, bending over the arm rest. Still, when he flinches upright suddenly, Tim bolts forward instinctively to brace a hand at the center of his back. 

Gerry bends down to pick something up off the ground, inspecting it in his hands before he holds it up for Tim to see over his shoulder: a red origami ninja star.

Okay.

Tim lifts himself up in his seat again to peer over the back of it and meets eyes with a sullen kid with fluffy brown hair, watching them intently. Can’t be more than nine or ten years old. There’s no one sitting in the window seat beside him.

The kid recoils when the ninja star clips him on the cheek, hands scrambling to catch it against his shirt. Tim snaps his eyes down to Gerry in shock only to see him smiling. The kid wiggles to sit up straight with just as devilish a look back at Gerry, but — actually _scowls_ at Tim, as if to say _mind your own business._

Tim sinks back down to face forward.

“I think he just _dismissed_ me?”

Gerry snickers under his breath, snapping out his hands to clap together around the ninja star when it’s flung back at him. “This is an A and B conversation, so _C_ your way out of it.”

Tim smacks his shoulder — his _good_ shoulder — in offense. Peeking between the head rests without sitting up all the way, Tim sees the kid biting back a smile at Gerry’s shitty reference. G-d. He’s never seen _Boyz n the Hood._ Or maybe he has. Tim doesn’t know what his parents let him watch, if they let him ride the bus alone. Assuming they _let_ him.

“You fire projectiles at small children now, is that it?” Tim asks when Gerry throws the ninja star back again. “You engage in tiny, tiny warfare?”

“He started it.”

Honestly, adorable. Except that Tim’s eyes skip to the empty window seat again, and he can’t leave it alone. He leans to all but rest his chin on Gerry’s shoulder just to whisper to him, hidden by the back of his seat.

“Think he’s running off somewhere?”

“Maybe.” Gerry sits back against him a bit after flicking the ninja star one more time. Other passengers are starting to stare. “Wouldn’t be surprised.”

Yeah. Tim already knows that Gerry ran off as a kid about as much as he did. Which really only leaves one question.

“Should I go talk to him so you can keep this up?”

Gerry turns his head to look at Tim, only for the ninja star to smack him on the chin and fall onto his lap. “Yeah. I don’t think I’d have anything useful to say.”

Tim scoffs. He’s not so sure he’ll have anything, either. He just wants to be sure what’s really happening here. If the kid is a runaway, that’s not just something to leave alone, even as much as he understands. One more look at the seats behind him gives him an idea of how to approach this without looking astonishingly creepy.

“Wish me luck, then.” 

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, then, and bends over to place it on the floor. He can’t very well calculate how much force he would need to skid it backwards just enough that it ends up on the ground _right_ where needs it to go, but the kid’s only two rows back. Here goes nothing.

“Oh, _shoot._ My _phone…_ Hang on, I have to go find it. ‘Scuse me, pardon me.”

Tim runs his hand down Gerry’s side as he stands up from his seat, squeezing past him to step over his legs in the aisle. Gerry swats the back of his thigh as he passes — _dangerously_ close to his ass — and Tim’s fingertips barely brush a strand of his hair when he swipes back at him without looking. Bastard.

The kid actually _rolls his eyes_ when Tim sits down in the empty seat across the aisle from him. He makes something of a show out of picking his phone up off the ground and dusting it off, but the moment they make eye contact, it doesn’t seem so necessary anymore. Tim leans on the arm rest and glances down at the ninja star being twiddled in the kid’s hands, like he thinks he’ll get in trouble if he throws it again.

“Hey,” he begins. “My name’s Tim. Your, uh… Your parents know you’re on this bus, yeah?”

The kid’s mumbled response gets lost in the idle sounds all around them, but at least he’d nodded his head. He crosses his arms in a way that makes Tim feel like an absolute jackass for the way he’d been crossing his before.

“Okay, just checking. And someone’s picking you up, when you get wherever?”

Another nod, all squishy and pouting. 

Christ, this was a bad idea. He’d better not look like a kidnapper to anyone nearby. Tim glances up at Gerry and makes a desperate face at him, to which Gerry has no actual response beyond a shrug. The kid keeps shuffling the ninja star in his fingers, looking more offended than scared or all that angry with the world. 

It’s really none of Tim’s business. His question has been answered; somebody’s going to claim this child at a bus stop and it’ll all be fine. He should go back to his seat, but — he should make this up to the poor kid or something, too. One quick shot. If it fails, that’ll be that.

Conspiratorially, Tim leans forward into the aisle to nod towards Gerry.

“Bet you can’t hit him smack in the forehead.”

The kid brightens and sits up, finally turning his head to look at Tim with determination. “Can so.”

“Prove it, then.” Tim sits back proudly, gesturing out. “Go on.”

With a little more wiggling to sit up straight, the kid leans forward to position the ninja star in his fingers in preparation to send it sailing towards Gerry’s face. Gerry has his head facing the front of the bus until Tim calls his name, and the folded paper clips him right on the nose as he turns.

The kid looks _incredibly_ pleased with himself, facing Tim with a smile. “Close enough.”

“Oh, you can do better than that. Hey, look out!”

Messily, the kid slaps his hands together to catch the ninja star as it’s flung back to him, the same way Gerry had caught it before. He wastes no time in launching it back at him.

So continues the game, until the bus heaves to a stop and the sound of the destination has the kid turning around to gather his bag up. He slings it onto his shoulder as he stands, pausing as he comes face to face with Tim on his way into the aisle. Tim leans back to give some room to exiting passengers who squeeze between them. When there’s a space, he smiles at him.

“Fine shooting,” he starts, trailing off where a name would go in a proper congratulations.

The kid pokes his lips out in the most cartoonish sort of pout, puttering a bit before he mutters, so briskly that Tim almost doesn’t catch it, “Callum.”

Tim doesn’t have the time to stitch the farewell together before Callum makes his way towards the exit. Gerry holds up the ninja star to him as he passes. Callum stops in front of him for a moment and seems to consider, before he shakes his head and keeps walking. Something in Tim’s chest squeezes tight.

Gerry shifts his legs accordingly as Tim steps around and over his lap to get back to his seat, collapsing down into it with a sigh. That was surprisingly exhausting for something that probably only took about fifteen minutes in total. He doesn’t want to check his phone yet and see how off the guess is.

“He should be fine,” Tim explains. “Has his gran waiting, he says.”

“That’s good.” Gerry’s eyes are on his own hands, rolling the ninja star over his lap. So much for a lasting distraction.

When they get off the bus, Gerry’s hand is shaking so hard he has to hold it still with the other. He walks quickly to the nearest wall to linger by it and Tim follows closely, boxing him in to shield whatever he has to say from the public.

“We need to go to the safehouse,” Gerry tells him.

“Okay,” Tim says. “For…?”

“To talk to Gertrude.”

Hold on. “I _beg_ your pardon?”

Gerry brushes past him and starts leading the way to another bus stop, a local city one that will take them closer to his street. They don’t say much on that bus, either, but it’s a shorter ride and it’s much clearer now that something is very, very wrong. 

Tim is very used to Gerry just _saying_ things. For him to clam up like this feels… backwards, and bad, and… _foreboding._ He doesn’t like it.

They don’t walk for very long before Gerry’s grip on his arm tightens. “This is going to suck. Just keep walking. It helps if you don’t try to hold your breath.”

“Hold my—” Honestly? Whatever. “Gotcha. This’ll be fun.”

It does not help even a little bit. One moment, the springtime evening is moderate and pleasant, and the next, Tim feels like he’s been smacked in the face with a sopping towel, drenched in ice water. There’s a sudden density to the air that he feels in the roots of his teeth.

When he wrenches his eyes back open, the air is breathable again. Gerry’s hand is still anchored hard in his sleeve. His expression is severe, even with the dim look in his eyes.

“Right!” Tim shakes his head, rubbing the lingering brain freeze feeling out of his temple. “So, that was about as fun as I expected.”

“Yeah, I nearly passed out the first time,” Gerry says easily. “But Adelard took it down and redid it while I was inside so I could have a bit more access. You’re touched by the Beholding just by dint of where you work. It’s _meant_ to keep _us_ out.”

The street is lined with a very normal stretch of terraced houses. Gerry goes up to one right in the middle of what feels like… a _section._ No lights on in any windows. It feels acute, and eerie. Dead quiet. No animal chatter, no birds — even straining, Tim is fairly certain there are no bugs making noise, either. He gets the distinct feeling that they’re intensely, infernally alone here.

And when Gerry unlocks the door, he gets the feeling that they are not alone at all.

It’s almost too clean, too unlived in. Simple decorations, quiet colours, peaceful. Gerry doesn’t turn the lights on. He hovers in the doorway a little, and he actually jumps when Tim touches his shoulder. The icy pit in Tim’s stomach doesn’t close up or warm over even when Gerry leans back against his chest.

“I’m fine, it’s just…” His knee jitters. He’s past the point where he usually needs to be sitting down. “You’ll see.”

“Um, I think we’re isolated enough now that you can just _tell me_ what’s going on.”

Gerry stares into the doorway like it’s a black hole. The blankness of his face tells Tim that calling this place a _safehouse_ is exactly the sore misnomer he’d always suspected.

“I don’t know why none of it is coming out,” Gerry says, again too close to a whisper. “I feel like I have to just show you.”

He pushes away from Tim’s chest to step inside, leaving Tim to shut the door behind him. The place is lit up enough by the last lingering light outside, but he still feels they should flick _something_ on. Would it disturb the ward to do so? Does the electricity even work here? How is that safe?

On the dining room table is a book laid off-center with nothing else surrounding it. No placemats, no centerpiece, no mail, no odds and ends. Just this book. It looks far too innocuous to suit the pure dread it puts in Tim’s gut.

He watches with waves of nausea as Gerry reaches out to open it, passing a few normal looking pages before a very mangled, twisted one makes Tim realize, _oh,_ that looks like _skin._

Oh. Gertrude— Hah. Okay. Tim is almost relieved at the spike of anger that rises in him. It’s easier to stay on track with an emotion like that than it is when he’s confused and floating and out of the loop. He knows what’s going on now.

Gerry flips to the very back of the Catalogue, and hangs onto the table to brace himself. He clearly doesn’t want to pick it up, but he eventually slides his hands underneath the cover and draws it up from the table into his arms.

“Don’t freak out,” he says, and Tim laughs.

“Oh, no, I’m not freaked out. I’m a little closer to _livid_ right now.”

“Don’t,” Gerry repeats. Tim looks over to see his face in the waning light, still flat and quiet but pleading. “Just let me get this over with, and listen. I don’t know if I’ll be able to focus, once she’s…”

Ah. Tim reaches out to touch his sleeve. “Right, of course.”

In a steady voice, somehow, Gerry begins to read.

_“All she knew when she opened her eyes was that she only had one of them left, and it couldn’t see through the blood. The snow was cold on the back of her head, until it wasn’t. When the boy finally appeared beside her, she knew at least the beast was dead, and that he was good for something after all._

_She never considered that her fatal flaw might be poor footing, or hubris. It didn’t matter, though. There was still work to be done, and it hinged upon whether the boy could do as he was told. She gripped tightly to his hand when the fear finally hit her, lightning hot and eager, and demanded herself to trust in learned behaviour. There’s only one person who can take care of her now, and she won’t live long enough to see him. The one sentimental part of her left almost wishes that she could tell him goodbye, but she knows he’ll see her again._

_“And so Gertrude Robinson ended.”_

Out of the sound of rising embers, there is someone seated in the chair beside them. If she arrived seated or had found the time to lower herself down while Tim stared at Gerry reading from that _thing,_ he can’t tell. He’s too focused on the black writing stretched across her face, and the fact that she casts no shadow on the table through the light behind her.

“Holy mother of—”

She looks at him like a bird, quick and intent. There’s something in her eyes that he _especially_ hates, even if he can’t put his finger on it. She looks — empty. Hollowed.

So does Gerry. If his face had seemed blank before, it was a mistake to say so. Now he’s completely without expression, but he’s shaking still and Tim would try to make him sit down if the chair wasn’t so close to Gertrude. This just doesn’t feel like a situation where he _could_ get comfortable even if he tried.

Gertrude makes a noncommittal noise. “And who is this?”

Gerry answers more quickly than Tim does as he sets the book back down. “Don’t worry about it.”

Tim frowns between them, but can’t quite find it in himself to say his own name. His eyes fall to Gertrude as she settles her arms on the table, soundless where the buttons on her sleeves should have scraped along the wood.

“You’re finally letting someone else in on your little secret,” she states, folding her hands. “I have to assume it’s for good reason.”

“Bouchard is up to something,” Gerry says. “I just need to know if it’s related to the Watcher’s Crown.”

Tim blinks. “The what…?”

Gertrude ignores him in favour of giving Gerry a dry look. “There are other avatars of the Eye out there who could be doing any number of preparations for it. It depends on what you think he’s doing.”

Gerry curls his hand around the back of a chair. His feet are planted so firmly a set distance apart that he doesn’t even sway. “We think he’s pushing us out of the Institute on purpose. You know he agreed to let us pursue the Circus on the clock, but he’s been sending us out to run errands for him further and further away, and we keep turning up with nothing.”

“The first time wasn’t quite nothing,” Tim says, crossing his arms. “We ended up with that old jeweler’s loupe that breaks through the whole ‘messing with reality’ thing that the Stranger and the Spiral do. I think that’s why we didn’t question it too much right at the start.”

She hums in consideration. There’s a very… _matte_ look to her. No light catches on her nose, her glasses, in her hair.

“When did that start?”

“After Sasha gave me her statement,” Gerry says.

Gertrude’s brow lifts. “Which concerned…?”

“Nothing of importance.”

“You can’t just assume that, or assume that I believe you. If you’re asking me for my help, you’re going to need to be honest with me.”

That earns a bitter laugh. “I am being honest with you. That doesn’t mean I have to tell you everything. The point is, Bouchard knew about it before we’d even gotten back with the tape. He knew I’d said my name wrong on the recording, made some remark about it right there in front of all of us.”

“So, he’s past hiding.” Gertrude nods to herself, the motion slow like heat distortion. “This actually… does complicate things, yes.”

Tim unfolds his arms. “How so?”

“If he’s being so overt, that means that he wants you to think all of his cards are on the table. It doesn’t matter if you’re aware he’s doing this as much as _what_ he’s hiding.”

Right. “Okay, so how do we figure that part out without just giving everything that _we_ know away?”

She tilts her head towards a shrugging shoulder. “Stick to talking in warded areas like this safehouse, and the tunnels.”

The legs of the chair that Gerry is holding onto scrape on the floor. His voice sounds very dark, suddenly, when he asks, “What tunnels?”

“Beneath the Institute,” Gertrude clarifies. “There is a network of deep tunnels connected back to the Millbank Prison. The Eye can’t reach inside of them, so it’s a worthy place to hold sensitive discussion.”

Tim watches Gerry’s eyes harden. It doesn’t seem to bother Gertrude at all, being looked at with so much hatred. It makes Tim want to grab Gerry and run.

“The moment you put up the rest of these wards and disappear from his radar is the moment he will know you’ve decided to become an active player. You’ve already made the choice, so you’ll need to commit to it.”

“We’ll go straight to your place when this is done,” Gerry says to Tim. “Send out a message to the others, too.”

Tim frowns. “Won’t that just give it away? If we just go from place to place and they go poof, one right after the other?”

“Would you rather him follow you home?”

Gerry’s tone is low and factual. Tim grimaces at the thought.

Gertrude doesn’t. “Waiting to try and dissuade him from seeing might not even work, so there’s no point. Just jump in. Be _almost_ as overt as he is.”

“Because _that’s_ specific,” Tim mutters. Gerry’s eyes stay low even as they shift in his direction, but there is no _respect your elders_ on his tongue.

He faces Gertrude again to pull in a deep breath. Tim can hear it stutter, and shifts a bit closer to him.

“What do we do after that?”

Gertrude’s eyes lock onto his face, and then snap down to his hands latched onto the back of the chair. It’s a motion so quick that Tim almost misses the transition. It feels, somehow, like he’s _missing it_ even as he watches her point a finger at Gerry’s white-knuckle grip.

“Shut your eyes.”

There is a profoundly unsettling silence. Tim watches Gerry’s face shift almost imperceptibly in the light from the window, his chin dipping slowly down as he glares at her. The hint of a scowl makes Tim think he should be watching this very closely.

“Why.”

Gertrude is so unaffected that it’s maddening. “I have a working theory about how Elias is able to _See_ things. It would track that he could access the viewpoint of any eye, symbology included.”

“Well, we all have regular eyes that aren’t going to be suddenly inaccessible to him if I destroy my tattoos, and _sorry,_ but _you_ are not taking that away from me.”

Tim’s brow twitches at that surge of outright refusal, worried gaze skipping over to Gerry. The thin sheen of sweat gathering at his temple, the motion of his chest as he breathes. Nope. Can’t take it anymore. Tim ducks closer to him, voice lowered.

“Ger, you need to sit down.”

Gerry doesn’t look like he’s even considering moving. Tim’s eyes follow the taut line between Gerry’s and Gertrude’s, and he puts it together.

“You asked for my advice,” Gertrude reminds them placidly.

“Never said I’d follow it to the letter. Give me something else.”

She makes a condescending little scoff in the back of her throat, like paper crumpling in a fireplace. “Of course, Gerard. I didn’t realize that your _tattoos_ are more important than finishing this work. Stopping the world from changing?”

“Okay,” Tim laughs, hands coming together in front of him. “Outstanding manipulation tactic, but absolutely not. There’ll be none of all _that,_ thank you. He said _no._ I know you have to have more than that in that old brain of yours, so fork it over.”

There’s no reason in the world that he has to be polite to Gertrude Robinson’s obituary. Not when he’s finally seeing the effect she has on Gerry. Maybe Gerry still feels like he owes her in some way, but Tim never did, and certainly doesn’t now.

Gerry’s never been one for the stoic poker face sort of thing, but it makes sense he’d end up here. There’s more anger in his face than Tim had anticipated when he was wavering in the doorway before, all concentrated into his eyes. He’s clearly just trying not to look scared. Tim _hates_ that if he can see that, so can she.

“Why do you think he might push you out of the Archives?” Gertrude prompts, almost exasperated, like she’s giving in to a child’s tantrum. “You don’t want to tell me what Sasha made her statement about, fine. But do you think that Elias could be targeting her because of it?”

Tim bristles, straightening up. “Targeting her for _what?”_

“That depends on what she made her statement on,” Gertrude tells him. “I can only help you with the information I’ve been given. So, if you’d like to elaborate, it might be of some more use to you.”

“Crawling Rot,” Gerry grits out. Tim rolls his eyes.

“You could _just say_ ‘Corruption.’”

Gerry ignores him, still staring at Gertrude. “Did you know about her mark?”

Gertrude looks sternly at him. “No, I… did not. If I had, I’d…”

She cuts herself off, then, but not sharply. Just turns her head to look at the table, retreating into a thought that Tim wants to demand she voice. Before he can, she says something else.

“What about the last member of your team? Is he already marked, as well?”

“Web,” Gerry says plainly. Gertrude’s head is up again like she’d never looked away at all.

“In all the times you’ve even bothered to summon me, you couldn’t have mentioned this?”

“Consider it payback for lying to me about the tunnels.” Gerry sounds remarkably bitter for someone so out of breath.

Gertrude purses her lips, disdainful. “I would say the two rank very separately in priority.”

“Less important for me to know things than for you, even now?” Gerry scoffs. His words are starting to slur. “Problem— working with what you’re given?”

“Stop wasting time with this petulance.” For a moment, she sounds almost angry. “Has the reason I’m even still here completely escaped you?”

Gerry actually shrugs. “You haven’t been much use so far.”

“Then is there _another_ reason you’re keeping me here? Is this some sort of ‘payback,’ as well?”

That gets Gerry to break eye contact for a split second, glancing away. 

Defensiveness rises again in Tim’s chest, and it takes real strength not to stretch an arm out in front of Gerry like a shield. Physically useless, he knows, given her utter motionlessness, her intangibility, but that’s not the point. Gerry opens his mouth to respond. Tim doesn’t hear the breath that escapes instead, it’s so quiet, but he sees the way Gerry’s eyelids are faltering in his efforts to keep them open. Enough.

“We don’t have the time to talk about that,” Tim says. “We’re not going to be here all day, so let’s wrap this up. Do you have _anything_ useful?”

Gertrude’s eyes are abyssal, shifting finally from Gerry to Tim in a look of muted offense. He wonders if she was more expressive in life, if this is some effect of being bound to that _thing._ He thinks he might have found a reason to hate her anyway. She reminds him a little of his mother, too.

“Keep an eye on him. It will be hard to do because of the nature of The Web, but that could very likely be what Elias really has his focus on. I don’t know yet how any of that would connect to the Watcher’s Crown, but it’s worth keeping tabs on.”

“Wards, tunnels, Jon.” Tim counts off on his fingers. “Fantastic. Are we done here?”

“If that’s all,” she says. She turns to Gerry blankly, like she’s washed her hands of the matter. “So long as you understand that you’ve just declared war.”

“Fine,” Gerry huffs, like he barely even heard her. “You’re dismissed.”

She’s there and then she’s not, like ashes in water. It looked for a moment like she was starting to roll her eyes as she went, but the moment after she’s gone, Tim realizes she’d just been looking over at him.

Gerry’s knees give out. Tim catches him by the elbows.

“Whoa, okay,” he says, gently. Adjusting his grip with one arm, he moves a hand up to feel at Gerry’s pulse to find it thundering. Shit. “Let’s get you to another room, alright?”

Gerry grabs onto his sleeves with a weak little noise of agreement. He should have been sitting since getting in here. His legs are probably purple by now.

Tim feels like he’s been drinking polluted water by the gallon jug, his mouth and throat lined with some filthy feeling that goes all the way to his stomach like hardening sludge. If that’s how _he_ feels after one conversation with her, then of course it’s bad enough for Gerry that he doesn’t bother to put up an argument. Even beyond what they already know is wrong with his heart rate, he might still be shaking. It looks like he’s going to be sick. And who could ever blame him?

“We can go do the wards,” Gerry gasps, just as Tim is easing him down onto the couch. “Let me just— get the supplies, we can go and…”

“Ger,” Tim cuts him off, kneeling in front of him to cup his face in both hands. “Look at me. Can you take a minute to gather yourself, or is being in this place only going to make it harder?”

Gerry’s wide eyes skip past Tim’s face to look at the table behind him. Tim strokes his hair away from his face, shifting into his line of sight to block it from view.

“How about you stay at my place tonight? Rest of the week, if you want. I’ll help you pack a bag, and we can just… get _far_ away from here. That sound good?”

After a long moment of just _looking_ at him, Gerry finally nods. “Okay.”

Tim hadn’t realized exactly how tense he was until it all drains away in relief. He cranes his neck up to kiss the center of Gerry’s forehead, settling back on his heels to rest an elbow on the edge of the couch beside him.

“Alright, let’s get some stuff together and head out. And when we get home? We’re going to revisit the Honesty Policy.”

───── ⋅◆⋅ ─────

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **CW: (attempted) manipulation; POTS attack; brief description of a dislocation; brief allusions to Bad Parenting**
> 
> _"warfair" - war; gerry and tim bickering, tiny warfare with callum, arguing with gertrude, declaring war on elias // fair; 'all is fair in love and war' / but is it, ever?_
> 
> (speaking of callum - anyone who has read [two ships passing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22189123/) remember the ninja star pinned to gerry's backpack? yeah :'-) and that's not all! [sail close to the wind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26601127/) has officially made it come what may canon, too!)
> 
> this installment is going to be _heavy._ this chapter was pretty short and simple, but the coming updates will be pretty packed, so buckle in!
> 
> [ [table of contents](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26637298) | [tumblr](https://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/) | [GTCU masterpost](https://docs.google.com/document/d/14KlgPfOb16ocGj8k0QrElw6UY0SqoNeH2yTj_zQ31bA/edit#) ]
> 
> ON DECK: **DOVECOTE**  
>  i.e., elias is very aware of what they've done.
> 
> EDIT 2/7/2021 - sorry for the hiatus, guys, it's been rough over here & i've been busy as hell, i want to come back to this as soon as the hand in hand series is finally done! thanks for your patience.


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